Early You Say? Nonsense!

Even though the 84th Annual Oscars are still less than a week old and we are still trying to re-align our brains to memorize that Meryl Streep now has 3 Oscars (!!!), it is time to try and predict the 2013 85th Academy Awards. Next year, we have a hundred or so big name fancy pants movies coming out with big directors and even bigger expectations. Obviously, some will succeed and some will fail, but the question is which. I’ll give a little bit of analysis at the end just to point out why I made some of the choices I did, but let’s face it, many of them are uncreative but I picked my favorites and I’ll stick to it!

Picture:

Anna Karenina

The Dark Knight Rises

Django Unchained

The Great Gatsby

The Master

6. The Hobbit

7. Les Misérables

8. The Surrogate

9. Lincoln

10. The Hunger Games

I ranked my Best Picture nominees as a top 5 without ranking, and then the next five with a ranking in case the rules change again in a year, and lets’ be real. I hope they do.

Director

Paul Thomas Anderson – The Master

Baz Luhrmann – The Great Gatsby

Christopher Nolan – The Dark Knight Rises

Quentin Tarantino – Django Unchained

Joe Wright – Anna Karenina

Actor

Leonardo DiCaprio – The Great Gatsby

John Hawkes – The Surrogate

Phillip Seymour Hoffman – The Master

Hugh Jackman – Les Misérables

Daniel Day Lewis – Lincoln

What a fun race would this be! I can already hear a DiCaprio backlash.

Actress:

Amy Adams – Trouble with the Curve

Keira Knightley – Anna Karenina

Jennifer Lawrence – The Hunger Games

Laura Linney – Hyde Park on Hudson

Michelle Williams – Take This Waltz

This was my absolute most difficult category to find contenders – because there aren’t big hyped up female performances until the festivals start to galvanize – but I’m happy with these choices.

Supporting Actor:

Tom Cruise – Rock of Ages

Leonardo DiCaprio – Django Unchained

Jude Law – Anna Karenina

Gary Oldman – The Wettest County

Eddie Redmayne – Les Misérables

Supporting Actress:

Amy Adams – The Master

Sally Field – Lincoln

Carey Mulligan – The Great Gatsby

Michelle Pfeiffer – Dark Shadows

Olivia Williams – Hyde Park on Hudson

Adapted Screenplay

Anna Karenina

Argo

Cogan’s Trade

The Dark Knight Rises

The Great Gatsby

Original Screenplay

Django Unchained

Gravity

The Master

The Surrogate

Take This Waltz

Art Direction

Anna Karenina

The Dark Knight Rises

Dark Shadows

The Great Gatsby

The Hobbit

Cinematography

Anna Karenina – Seamus McGarvey

The Dark Knight Rises – Wally Pfister

Django Unchained – Robert Richardson

The Great Gatsby – Simon Duggan

Skyfall – Roger Deakins

Costume Design

Anna Karenina

Dark Shadows

The Great Gatsby

Hyde Park on Hudson

The Hunger Games

Film Editing

The Dark Knight Rises

Django Unchained

The Hunger Games

The Untitled Kathryn Bigelow Movie

World War Z

Makeup

The Hobbit

Lincoln

World War Z

Original Score

Anna Karenina – Dario Marianelli

The Dark Knight Rises – Hans Zimmer

Dark Shadows – Danny Elfman

The Hobbit – Howard Shore

On the Road – Gustavo Santaolalla

Original Song

Something from Brave

Something from The Hunger Games

Something from Les Miserables

Something from Frankenweenie

Something from Rock of Ages

Sound Editing

The Avengers

Brave

The Dark Knight Rises

Prometheus

World War Z

Sound Mixing

The Dark Knight Rises

Django Unchained

The Hobbit

Les Miserables

Prometheus

Visual Effects:

The Avengers

Cloud Atlas

The Dark Knight Rises

The Hobbit

Prometheus

So that’s it. I’m on the record. Here are a few extra thoughts:

I think Anna Karenina has so much pedigree it will definitely be in the mix somewhere.

The Great Gatsby is the biggest wild card, but I trust Carey Mulligan’s judgment. Is that weird?

When Ben Affleck directs a movie, someone gets a supporting nomination. Having not read the script, I went for a Writing nomination instead since Affleck is a previous winner in that category.

The Dark Knight Rises will do really well, and then lose best picture and people will gripe. I’m already over it.

I want Cogan’s Trade to be so good it hurts. I restrained and only gave it screenplay.

Dark Shadows is just begging for and Art Direction Oscar.

Since this is just the first of two Hobbit movies, I think a lot of the love will be saved for the second one. The first will just get a few technicals.

Umm Olivia Williams is playing Eleanor Roosevelt? Yes, please.

The Hunger Games just might show up. Get ready.

I’m assuming Lincoln is going to be the J. Edgar of this year, but with Spielberg, it’ll sneak through. And obviously Sally Field is in. The Academy loves Sally Field.

I also didn’t know who would break through from Wettest County and I still don’t.

I have Amy Adams and Leonardo DiCaprio as double nominees. I really do believe one of them could do it, and Amy Adams needs to clinch that win now before she just becomes another Julianne Moore.

2 Comments to “Early You Say? Nonsense!”

Brave. Most of them are probably spot on. I still think though that we should look back to such films as ‘A Dangerous Method’ and ‘J.Edgar’ and not overate ‘Anna Karenina’ and ‘Great Gatsby’. I hope that they are going to be absolutely amazing films, deserving numerous Oscars, but sadly that is exactly what I thought when I first saw ‘A Dangerous Method’ trailer (

Of course, although “A Dangerous Method” was from David Cronenberg, who makes Academy unfriendly movies that rarely get nominated at all. “Anna Karenina” and “The Great Gatsby” are both by directors who have had large success with the Academy before. Also large failures, but I think things just seem right this time around for these two.